How Long Does the Tree Stay Up?

Q: We tire of the Christmas tree in our home, but the children tell us we have to keep it up through the Baptism of the Lord. Is that true?

A: Take consolation in the fact they did not request the tree to stay up through the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, which falls on February 2, forty days after Christmas. By some calculations, this is the end of the Christmas season. And yes, despite concerted efforts by the world of commerce to erase all signs of Christmas beginning on December 26, your children are correct. In the church and hopefully in your home, the evergreens continue to stand and the poinsettias, though often visibly tired, persist. The two main liturgical celebrations of the church, Christmas and Easter, have a time of preparation, respectively Advent and Lent, and a time of celebration, respectively Christmastide and Eastertide. I suspect that the problem with Christmastide is that we do not take Advent very seriously.

We often skip the season of Advent altogether and start celebrating Christmas on the First Sunday of Advent, if not before. It is difficult to take Advent seriously when all of society insists on setting up Christmas trees, playing Christmas songs, and doling out Christmas wishes as soon as the last leftover turkey sandwich has been consumed. As a result, people are understandably tired of Christmas by the time Christmas comes around. The recovery of a true Christmas season thus presumes the recovery of a true Advent season. But I am afraid this is almost a lost cause.

So please, listen to your children and stand up against the hostile takeover of Christmas by commerce. Leave up your tree throughout Christmastide. And next year, resist the temptation to buy your Christmas tree until Christmas, even if your children protest. Instead, decorate your home with a beautiful Advent wreath and introduce the lighting of the candles, one by one on the successive Sundays of Advent.

© 2015 Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. Excerpted from What’s the Smoke For? And Other Burning Questions about the Liturgy by Johan van Parys © 2014 Order of Saint Benedict, published by Liturgical Press, www.litpress.org. Used by permission.